Clawfinger

Clawfinger (English " claw finger ") was a crossover band from Sweden and Norway.

• 6.1 Studio albums
• 6.2 Singles & EPs

Short Biography

Too great a reputation in Europe, the band arrived in the early 1990s in the burgeoning crossover trend. The Scandinavians were with the pioneers of this genre. However, when waning of the crossover wave they lost one of notoriety. In 2007, she released her seventh studio album. Concisely for the first generation of commercially successful crossover bands was the content of socially critical respect. Clawfingers big hits are from the period 1992-1996 ( Nigger, The Truth, Pin Me Down, Do What I Say ). Subsequently, the band landed two more chart success with singles ( Biggest and the best and Out to Get Me ) as well as known remixes for bands like Rammstein or Die Krupps.

By operating their own Fear -and- Loathing - recording studios in Sweden with the band Meshuggah Clawfinger are also active as a producer of numerous rap and metal productions backstage.

Sound

Clawfinger were long regarded as Europe's answer to Rage Against the Machine (USA) acted as it seemed both sound-wise and content strongly based than this band. "Through their clinical guitars and pounding beats, they were the most electronic version of the rampant sale Zappelbudenvirus " (Source: Plattentests.de ). This sound is considered a trademark of the band. It is characterized by sharp - sawed guitar sounds that support often less than two riffs long rap - singing rhythmically. Clawfinger use any guitar solos. The style is characterized by simple and very briefly held guitar riffs and hooks tangible and easy to remember chorus. The guitars are usually recorded without additional guitar amps and pickups directly from the mixer.

A reference in the booklet of the debut album in 1993 describes the band's sound still very good:

This allusion aimed directly onto Rage Against the Machine, which is especially careful appealed to produce all the sounds with the guitars themselves and wrote in their own booklet of the self-titled debut album in 1992:

Career

1992-1993: Deaf Dumb Blind

Media attention, the band underwent a few months after their debut album Deaf Dumb Blind ( 1993), because the same first single nigger was prejudiced as a racist song and brought the band on MTV and VIVA in the discussion. Singer Zak Tell Announces due to the misunderstanding still on some concerts the song as "anti- racist play" on. In response Clawfinger published the song Braindead on a Antifa Antifa Soli Sampler Stockholm. Published in the same year single The Truth finally ran up on the music channels and down; it was followed by tours with Alice In Chains, Die Krupps and Anthrax. Quick followed by appearances at major international festivals like Rock am Ring or Roskilde Festival, and the song Warfair was the third single. From the album 250,000 units were sold in Germany.

The song criticizes black minorities - in particular in the field of American hip- hop culture - that, to use the word " nigger " for yourself, as this is originally used by the whites as an extremely pejorative term for dark-skinned. The German translation of the first verse goes something like this:

German:

English:

Critics countered that its own use of the word would also lead to an elimination of the word as an insult.

1993-1996: Use Your Brain

The second album Use Your Brain continued the success of its predecessor and sold again 250,000 times. The first single Pin Me Down came into heavy rotation on music television. Technically sound the band changed nothing on their concept. Song structure, content and stylistic devices were maintained and the band showed no further creative development. The single from the album Do What I say was a radio hit also because of their two underage boys shouted angrily title. The song takes a critical look with authoritarian upbringing and the reflection of the educated.

After three years of intensive touring and over 500 worldwide live concerts with highlights of Monsters of Rock festivals in South America in 1994 were followed by initial kinks in the band's career. So bursting plans to release the first album in the U.S., after the song already niggers should be replaced by a b-side (Get It). Overall, there were two unsuccessful attempts to break into the North American market.

1997-2001: Clawfinger and "Rammstein - Connection"

The sawing and dominant guitars gave way on the third album Clawfinger (1997) slowly progressive and viscous -eating rhythms. The lyrics no longer had the mark of youth rebellion, but moved away from texts with wagging fingers and showed a more emotional and psycho- dark side of the tape. Despite the use of new style products and various sound experiments sales plummeted ( approximately 150,000 albums in Germany ), although the band with their new single Biggest and the Best was able to land another Discohit while crossover acts like Dog Eat Dog, H- Blockx and others were recently disappeared from the scene. In contrast, the second single from Two Sides was hardly attention. Larger praise learned the band for their remixes for the German band Rammstein, for which they produced a remix for the first time in 1997.

2001-2003: A Whole lot of Zeros?

After the band from their label wea was put off and it never came to a publication of the newly written songs, Clawfinger changed the label and went to GUN Records. GUN Clawfinger helped with the extraction Out to Get Me (2001) after years of failures to a renewed top 100 hit. The coupling as well as the album A Whole Lot of Nothing (2001) provided the band with a comeback. Creative Excursions as to Clawfinger or new lyric findings did not exist from the band, however. Instead, Clawfinger repeated not only musically but also in content. With Out to Get Me or Nothing Going On but two singles were released, which brought back the band back on the big stages.

In 2003, published album Zeros & Heroes was almost no attention, the label GUN left the band virtually disappear by restrained marketing in the sinking and the band toured far from the big festivals to small rock and metal open- air festivals in rural areas across the country. This also was not the exit of guitarist Erlend Ottem in October 2003. Since the departure Erlend Jocke takes over next to the keyboard frequently the guitar. The only single Recipe for Hate was the soundtrack to the Matrix video game.

Clawfinger 2005 signed a new record deal with Nuclear Blast, a label with a focus on Metal. Clawfinger order to find next Manowar, In Flames or Graveworm in an unprecedented musical for her neighborhood. November 21, 2005 appeared Hate Yourself with Style. Music Videos are admitted Dirty Lies and Without a Case.

The album marked a slight difference to the previous albums, so often multiple voices and tempo changes were used in the choruses. Overall, the band retained their previous style of music. The lyrics were on a usual critical level, however, let this time to more insults.

End of August 2013 the band gave the dissolution.

Remixes

Already with the first single nigger and special remix EPs, the band lived with remixes from creative. Only rarely, however, there was in his own musical development of truly elemental changes. The statement of the singer " remixes are Rip - Offs " very early expressed There are numerous own remixes. So there have been countless interpretations own songs between techno to hard industrial experiments. International praise themselves garnered the band a with a remix for Die Krupps, for which they reinterpreted their hit To the Hilt.

Band network

Discography

Studio albums

Singles & EPs

• 2005: Hate Yourself with Style (part of the limited edition of the album of the same name )